Dales' group did not have to wait too long. 10 minutes have passed when a figure could be seen floating in the air above the wall and gazing down at them. It was General Marquis Hendrick.
After Hendrick had confirmed that it was indeed Dales, he was ready to order the soldiers to lower the rope ladders, but he immediately hesitated after sweeping his gaze across one of the envoys of the Elven Tribe, the Supreme Elder to be exact.
It was the second time he felt such a strong presence from the Wildlands that could make him feel apprehensive. Although the Supreme Elder was casually standing, Hendrick could feel that this person was even stronger than the Skysilver Tribe's beast king.
However, it was just a moment of indecisiveness before the general marquis made his decision. Such a strong person coming a representative to seek friendly relations with their kingdom should be received with care and sincerity, not to mention the wall would seem like a joke to such a strong person if they did come with ill intentions.
"Lower the rope ladders."
"Yes, general."
The rope ladders tossed over the wall shortly and Tom immediately started climbing excitedly. Dales also made his way forward not before giving the two envoys an embarrassed look.
"This is usually how we enter the Human Domain when we are not traveling by airships. Please don't be offended by our crude methods of entering, but the wall was built with the idea of keeping anything from the Wildlands entering in mind."
"You don't have to worry about that."
The Supreme Elder and Princess Faelyn looked at the rope ladder with interest, but the former had no intention of climbing, while the latter was prepared to give this new experience a go.
"Wait a moment, Princess."
The Supreme Elder stopped the Princess from attempting to climb with her untrained limbs.
'Princess?'
The General Marquis gawked and also realized that the crude method was rather inappropriate envoys of royal descent. He had about received them personally with his ability.
After gaining insights into the concept of wind and breaking through to the one-star ranked awakener level, his following cultivation had been smooth and without bottlenecks, steadily advancing to five-stars.
His cultivation speed was not inferior to those training with the aid of Heavenly Crystal when he cultivates in the sky above the wall where the wind was strong.
Sending the group of four over the wall would just be as easy as lifting one's hand at his current level, but before he could act, he witnessed something magical with amazement.
The Supreme Elder took out some unknown seeds from his grass-woven pouch and infused them with a green glow before sprinkling them on the ground by his foot.
The seeds immediately germinated alarmingly quick and sprouted strange vine-like roots that weaved around each other like a rope, followed by lively and big green leaves that looked solid and tenacious.
The Supreme Elder stepped on the new big leaf with the princess before the leaf platform lifted them up to the top.
After stepping off onto the wall, the bizarre tree shrank from the bottom up and reverted back into a seed that fell into the Supreme Elder's hand before being stored in his pouch again.
Everyone was amazed by the envoy's elven means as their gaze lingered on the pouch for a long time, but they soon had their breaths taken away by Princess Faelyn's otherworldly beauty.
"So beautiful…"
Cough*
The general coughed for them to snap out of there reverie as it was inappropriate to stare for so long.
Meanwhile, at the bottom of the wall, Tom lost his excitement in climbing. He suddenly found rope ladder climbing to be tedious. Couldn't they have taken him up too?
Dales smiled wryly and continued to the climb.
After everyone reached the top, he was prepared to greet the general marquis when the latter gave him a big bear hug.
"It's good to know that you are still alive, Old Friend!"
Creak…
Dales could feel his bones protesting as he did his best to keep a straight smile, but his left eye twitched repeatedly while calmly forcing his words out.
"General, we can save the sentiments for later. The Envoys of Elvengarde are here."
"Ahem, right." Hendrick quickly recovered before turning to Supreme Elder with a smile and respectfully greeted, "I am General Hendrick, the one in charge of defending this region. We welcome your visit to the Western Frontier of our Crawford Kingdom. How may I address the both of your esteemed selves?"
"My tribesmen call me Supreme Elder, but you may call me Elder Haldir, and this is the fifth princess of Elvengarde, Princess Faelyn. We are grateful for your welcoming." The Supreme Elder said cordially.
Despite being the strongest present, he did not act overbearingly nor humbly. Without grasping the strength of the Human Domain, he did not want to cause unnecessary friction, but neither would he behave in a way that undermines his own status.
"It's our pleasure to make your acquaintance, Elder Haldir, Princess Faelyn." Hendrick greeted. "Before we continue, allow us to act as proper hosts and change the scenery to a more appropriate place for our talk, shall we?"
After exchanging short pleasantries, they moved to a more reserved spot where they could be seated and served tea.
The general marquis took the initiative to do a brief introduction to their background to avoid any future complications and misunderstanding.
The Crawford Kingdom was the guardian of the Human Domain, but they do not represent the entire Human Domain. Each kingdom was separated by a long distance that made it difficult to keep contact.
Ordinary people would take weeks to months to travel between kingdoms if they had no access to steam-powered transportations.
After the general marquis clarification, they moved onto the main topic, the alliance between Elvengarde and Crawford Kingdom.
The terms of their alliance include the exchange of information and culture, and to help each other in times of trouble.
Honestly, the general marquis wanted to agree to the alliance on the spot, but it was not his decision to make. He had to report back to the king and await the king's decision.
The situation in the Wildlands was something the Crawford Kingdom always hoped to understand and if they could get the help of someone of the Supreme Elder's caliber, they might be able to save many lives by putting an end to the war sooner.
However, the general marquis did not understand why the Elves were willing to ally with them. Did it have something to do with the big tree that appeared in the east of their kingdom?
As they moved to this topic, the Supreme Elder was quite honest and did not hide their intentions.
"We did seek your kingdom out for the World Tree that appeared in your kingdom, but more importantly, I've had a premonition that a great disaster is coming to this continent and the only way for the elves of Elvengarde to survive this disaster is to side with your kingdom. I am sure the general has also noticed the strange behavior of the beasts in recent times. I fear it would only continue to get worse."
The Supreme Elder's frankness naturally raised Hendrick's impression of the elves as he wore a warm smile throughout their exchange. But when the beasts were mentioned, the General Marquis became quite serious.
"Has any of the elves contracted the same symptoms as these berserk beasts?" Hendrick asked.
"None." The Supreme Elder shook his head, but he soon frowned at the question posed by the general marquis. "The General asked because…?"
"It's better if I just show you."
In a certain area of the Military Base's Research Department, there was a single reinforced cage with a single human researcher inside.
However, this human researcher had already lost his mind and had shown extreme animalistic behaviors, coupled with abnormal physical prowess to date as various scratches and dents could be seen in the cage.
After arriving and learning that the researcher became like that after accidentally inhaling an unknown source of energy that escaped from one the berserk beasts they had dissected for study, the Supreme Elder was shaken.
If humans could also be infected by this unknown energy, the elves would also not be an exception.
The Supreme Elder didn't know where the unknown energy came from, but the discovery filled him with dread and a greater sense of urgency to seal the deal on the alliance so he could start bringing the elves over to the Human Domain.
The unknown energy described by the humans sounded a lot like the red energy that has been appearing in the Wildlands in recent times.
"Regarding the alliance…"
"My sincerest apologies, Elder Haldir. Although I am in favor of the alliance, I cannot make that decision. I must trouble you and Princess Faelyn to make a trip with me to the Capital to meet the king before we can progress with the alliance." Hendrick immediately said apologetically.
As the defender of the west, it was his responsibility to confirm that the envoys came with genuine intentions as they proclaimed and did not come with malicious intent to do harm to their king and kingdom.
"No trouble at all." The Supreme Elder waved with a genial smile. "We had learned much while we were here, and our talk has been quite enjoyable, to say the least."
"Father, I would also like to accompany you and the esteemed envoys to the Capital." Rowan Graham arrived in a wheelchair and requested as he sneaked a peek at Princess Faelyn by the Supreme Elder's side with infatuation.
He had caught a glimpse of Princess Faelyn in passing earlier when they were sipping tea near the training field and he was immediately mesmerized by her beauty.
Hendrick frowned at his son's lack of consideration. In normal cases, he would have agreed, but as much as he hates to say it, it was disrespectful to the royal envoy to be escorted by a crippled even if he was just accompanying him.
However, Hendrick did not reject outright but turned to the Supreme Elder for an answer. "What does Elder Haldir think?"
"Hmm…"
The Supreme Elder naturally noticed the lust in the boy's eyes and frowned with disappointment.
The general marquis and his son were too different. One was valiant, heroic, and very mindful of his gaze, but the other? Haiz…
Princess Faelyn felt uncomfortable with such strong passionate gazes, but the other person was the general's son. They should at least give the general some face.
"He can come."
The Princess took the initiative to say out of respect, but Rowan was over the moon when he heard her sweet words and thought that she had a favorable impression of him despite his disability.
Hendrick silently sighed with disappointment that his son could not resist the charms of beautiful women, or rather… he had no resistance at all!
…
On a distant hill on the eastern outskirts of the Capital, Leon stopped to overlook the current state of the Capital and sighed with amazement at its changes.
After running at his greatest speed for twelve hours with two breaks in between, he had finally reached the Capital.
Traveling with others and traveling alone had such a great difference in time of arrival, but he was more amazed by his own improved stamina to keep up such running speed for so long.
Was this one of the benefits of tempering his meridians? What if he tempered his heart? Would his body become inexhaustible to physical exertion?
Maybe if he tempered his kidneys, he would also be inexhaustible in—Ahem, he just thinking nonsense.